Who will be the next Army CIO?

With the retirement of Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson as Army chief information officer, the military IT community is now wondering who will fill the formidable shoes he leaves behind. Sorenson spent more than 37 years in the service, with three of those years in the CIO office.

Mike Krieger, Sorenson’s deputy since July 2008, is now filling in as acting Army CIO, while Maj. Gen. Mark Bowman, currently Army director for architecture, operations, networks and space, takes on the deputy job.

Related coverage:

An inside source familiar with the CIO office, speaking on background, indicated that Bowman is in the running for Sorenson’s former post, as is Maj. Gen. Susan Lawrence, who in September stepped down as commander of the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command/9th Signal Command in Fort Huachuca, Ariz.

Sorenson, a longtime proponent of advancing military IT capabilities who has been instrumental in building the Defense Department’s Global Information Grid, marked his retirement in a ceremony Nov. 4. Though little was made public of his retirement, the ceremony included about 400 guests and was presided over by Gen. Peter Chiarelli, the Army vice chief of staff, according to Margaret McBride, CIO/G-6 public affairs officer.

“Sorenson thanked the Army for the opportunity to serve and the CIO/G-6 organization for their commitment to deliver the finest [command, control, communications and computers]/IT network capabilities to soldiers,” McBride said in a statement.

“We have come a long way to reshape the network enterprise strategy,” Sorenson said, according to the statement. “And I believe the CIO/G-6 is on the cusp of delivering significant network capabilities to the warfighter through all our enterprise initiatives.”

The new Army CIO will be selected by the secretary of defense and/or secretary of the Army, and will face Senate confirmation -- which could take several months, and which the interim CIO and deputy are prepared for, according to the inside source.